The anti-leakage device of this invention is described as applied to a gear box, but its utility is not limited thereto. The gear box of the illustrative embodiment can be of the general type described in co-pending application Ser. No. 08/303,365, filed Sep. 9, 1994. As illustrated in that application, the seals used in machinery of this sort have generally depended upon the squeezing of a flexible lip seal against the rotating shaft. Because the resilient lip seals have necessarily to bear snugly against the shaft, their life is limited because of the attrition of the seal by the action of the shaft. Typically, run time before failure is on the order of 5,000 hours. Furthermore, the use of a lip seal requires special treatment of the shaft to resist wear or scoring of the shaft and wear of the seal in operation, and special precautions in shaft-to-housing assembly to avoid damage to the seal.
One of the objects of this invention is to provide a seal or anti-leakage device that does not rely upon interference to prevent leakage, and therefore is not subject to appreciable wear.
Another object is to provide such an anti-leakage device that is inexpensive, and easy to assemble as compared with a lip seal.
Other objects will become apparent to those skilled in the art in the light of the following description and accompanying drawing.